


The Five Times Sherlock Wanted to Kiss John

by ColebaltBlue



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Community: sherlockbbc_fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-08
Updated: 2010-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColebaltBlue/pseuds/ColebaltBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A "5 Times" story written as a fill on the Sherlock BBC Kink Meme for this prompt: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/575.html?thread=724287#t724287. Posted anonymously over there and under my name elsewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Five Times Sherlock Wanted to Kiss John

_One_

John sat in the red chair trying to concentrate on the Sunday paper. Sherlock was a mess of fidgety movement and long sighs. They didn’t have a case at the moment and Sherlock was trying to not be bored by reading a book. He was failing and making John miserable.

“Why don’t you clean out your room, John suggested without looking up from the sentence he had read four times.

He could feel Sherlock’s response burn into him. He tried very hard not to smile.

“You can’t be that bored,” John continued and Sherlock huffed in response.

“I could always shoot the wall again,” Sherlock responded, darkly.

John smiled at that. Empty threats. Sherlock hadn’t shot the wall in months - not since John had threatened to tell Lestrade where Sherlock hid the gun during his next drugs bust.

“Bored,” Sherlock shouted.

“Yes, I know, but yelling about it won’t make it any better, Sherlock.”

“You’re an insufferable prick.”

“Verbally abusing me won’t help either,” John replied mildly, turning the page.

Sherlock grinned at him, eyes dark, teeth clenched. John pretended to ignore him.

There was a knock at the door. Sherlock cocked his head, attempting to deduce who was standing there from the sounds and smells of the last few moments. John studied him, and was pleased when Sherlock seemed to be unable to determine who would be calling at his flat on a Sunday morning.

“Aren’t you going to get that?” John asked, feigning continued interest in the paper.

Sherlock looked at him with narrowed eyes, correctly deducing that John was well aware of who was at the front door. He stood up and walked towards the stairs, eyes on John the whole time. John ignored him.

He could hear Sherlock accepting and signing for the package downstairs and smiled to himself. It was nice, occasionally, to be able to surprise Sherlock - and he was fairly confident this would be a surprise.

Sherlock reappeared carrying a plain white box and sat on the coffee table holding it out in front of him.

“Unless you’ve suddenly developed X-ray vision, you can’t actually see the contents unless you open it,” John said, folding his paper and putting it down. Sherlock looked at him suspiciously through his shaggy hair. John grinned.

“You’re quite pleased with yourself.”

John responded by tilting his head to the side and crossing his arms. Sometimes it paid off to still be in touch with your old instructors at St. Bart’s, especially when they were done with their experiments and had spare body parts left over.

Sherlock ripped the tape off the box and opened it, peering inside. His face split into a wide grin.

“John!” he exclaimed in delight. “I could kiss you right now!”

  


_Two_

“John,” John heard from the vicinity of his bedroom door. His eyes snapped open.

Fuck, he thought to himself, it’s not even light out. He looked over his shoulder, shifting slightly, to the silhouette standing in his doorway. Sherlock was pulling his gloves on, coat and scarf already in place.

“Fuck off,” he said.

“John,” Sherlock repeated.

John groaned and rolled over, glancing at the clock. “Sherlock it’s three in the morning, what could you possibly need now?”

Sherlock clasped his hands in front of him. “There’s a case.”

“A what?”

“You heard me.”

“No, Sherlock, no. Not at three o’clock, not when it's cold out, and definitely not when I’ve been asleep for only two hours. Tell your case to sod off.”

“Is he coming?” John heard Lestrade call from somewhere below.

I guess can sleep when I’m dead, or when Sherlock’s dead John thought darkly as he threw back the covers and stumbled into some clothes. Sherlock stood there and watched him.

The lights of London blinked at him as he stared sleepily out of the taxi window on the way to the crime scene. Sherlock sat next to him, buzzing with anticipation.

The taxi arrived at the crime scene, full of blinking lights, and teams of police and forensic experts. The number of people told John that this was no simple dead body. Sherlock bounced on the balls of his feet as he waited for John to stumble out. He threw his arm around John’s shoulders and dragged him towards the brightest of the lights.

“John! Three dead bodies. No explanations. Trauma. Symbols. It’s all so exciting,” Sherlock murmured into the side of his head. John reached up and patted Sherlock’s hand where it rested on his shoulder.

“John, I could kiss you right now!”

“Please don’t, Sherlock,” he replied as they ducked under police tape. Sherlock appeared not to hear him and practically bounded up to where Anderson bent over the bodies. John sighed, scrubbed his still sleepy eyes and followed at a more sedate pace.

  


_Three_

It was late on a Friday night. They had wrapped up another case that morning and Sherlock hadn’t decided which of his waiting ones he wanted to tackle next. John had convinced him to go out to dinner and Sherlock had taken them to another little hole-in-the-wall establishment where the owner and waiters knew him and doted on him.

“Is there any restaurateur in London that doesn’t know you well enough to offer you free food?” John asked Sherlock as they walked back towards Baker Street.

“Don’t be stupid,” Sherlock replied, but the insult lacked its usual sting.

John smiled to himself, he wasn’t complaining – it was much easier on his pension to have Sherlock’s name and face pay for their food. He was full from the rather delicious and decadent dinner. Sherlock seemed quieter, more contemplative, and less full of nervous energy. John had watched him consume his entire dinner, two glasses of wine, all of his own dessert and most of John’s, at record pace. He supposed Sherlock was in what qualified as a food coma for him. Occasionally Sherlock’s shoulder would brush or bump his. The second time it did so, John looked up and caught Sherlock grinning down at him. A real smile. He smiled back.

John watched the people on the street. It was unseasonably warm and that had brought the people out late at night, most of them slightly sloshed, stumbling in and out of the pubs, calling to their friends on the streets and pavements. Sherlock’s hands were in his pockets and his gaze on the people as well.

“You can’t ever shut it off, can you?” John asked as he watched Sherlock’s gaze linger just slightly on a couple wrapped around each other stumble out of a club and towards a the street.

Sherlock looked at him, curious.

“John, it’s not a party trick that can be flicked on and off like a light switch.”

“I know, Sherlock, it’s who you are,” John said, mostly to himself. Sherlock had become less and less a mystery to him over the months they lived together. Once he started to look past the lightening-fast and disturbingly accurate deductions there was really just a mad genius underneath it all.

Sherlock hummed softly in agreement. They turned onto Baker Street and the noise faded away, their steps growing louder and louder, in sync.

John stepped onto the first step.

“John,” Sherlock’s voice came from behind him. Something in it made him realise that Sherlock was going to say something important and all too human. He turned around and looked at Sherlock, eyes even with his for once. Sherlock wore a soft smile on his face, looking like nothing more than the man that he really was.

“Thank you,” he said, softly.

John searched Sherlock’s eyes without replying. There was something there that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Sherlock moved forward imperceptibly and John swore for an instant that he was going to kiss him, but the moment was gone almost before it was there.

He shrugged and offered Sherlock a wry smile as if to say, ‘it’s no problem,’ before turning back to the door and unlocking it. Sherlock’s presence beside him was familiar and comforting.

  


_Four_

“Shit,” John said, more to himself as he bounded up the stairs behind Sherlock’s impossibly athletic body. The bang of shoes on metal echoed in the large and empty warehouse. The two of them had crashed through a window just moments earlier, in hot pursuit of yet another criminal. John quickly calculated in his head how much extra he was going to force Sherlock to invoice their client for ‘bodily harm in the line of duty’. Thinking of that helped him to not think of the burning in his lungs as he ran after his companion.

“Hurry up, John!” Sherlock called from the walkway above him.

John saved his breath and cursed Sherlock in his head.

His companion sprinted towards the doorway in the warehouse wall, a swirl of long legs and sweeping coattails. John followed seconds later into what appeared to be an empty room.

“Sherlock!” he called in between heavy breaths. There was no answer.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered before calling Sherlock’s name again.

He spotted a doorway on the other side of the room and darted through it. This room had table in it, piled with a mess of wires. John stopped, the Army soldier inside of him immediately recognizing the improvised explosive device for exactly what it was.

‘I’m going to kill him,’ was his first conscious thought after his body had already turned back towards the doorway he had just come through.

Sherlock was there. Time slowed for John and he looked at Sherlock’s face, recognizing the fear, shock, and surprise all at once. His brain processed what was going on in the wires behind him, the electric signals shooting through and he seemed to recall a blinking light. Detonation, he knew. His training kicked in and he relaxed his body, knowing there was nothing else he could do against the shockwave, hoping that the amount of explosives was small enough he’d survive the explosion.

He watched Sherlock flatten himself to the floor as he was shoved forward by the concussion of the shockwave.

The world went blank.

He woke up on his back, blinking. Sherlock’s face hovered above his. He could see his lips moving, but no words were coming out.

‘Temporary deafness,’ the doctor in him realized, and then in a rush he could hear the ringing in his ears, smell the explosives lingering in the air, and see the dust swirling about him.

His hands tried to come up to check on his companion, military training still alive and well.

Sherlock batted them down and pressed his hands to either side of his face. Time slowed and John gasped for breath, his first conscious one. His lungs burned and his eyes watered.

Sherlock’s lips continued to move over and over. He supposed they were saying his name. He watched them for a moment before looking into Sherlock’s eyes.

They were pale and dark all at the same time. Frantic. Concerned. Afraid.

John tried to smile and felt his lips crack, the metallic taste of blood.

‘Oh, God,’ he saw Sherlock’s mouth form just before he felt the press of Sherlock’s forehead into his, his hot breath against his lips.

Time sped up and all of a sudden he could hear the sirens from the police cars surrounding the warehouse. He smiled and relaxed. They’d be fine. He let the world fade around him.

  


_Five_

John stumbled on the stairs and felt Sherlock’s arm tighten around his waist, holding him up. He looked down at his feet and twisted his lips in a grimace.

“Careful,” Sherlock murmured from above his head.

John sighed and winced at the pain in his leg that made him stumble. This time the limp wasn’t psychosomatic. It was tiring to be injured and he was sick of it.

“You’ll be fine,” Sherlock said, as if he could read his thoughts.

Sherlock had been by his side since he woke up in the hospital, annoying the doctors until they stopped asking him to leave, and pseudo-flirting with the nurses so they stopped kicking him out when visiting hours were over. He made a bad nursemaid, though, distractedly solicitous when he remembered to be and completely preoccupied with his own thoughts most of the rest of the time. John's hospital bed had been a convenient spot for Sherlock to spread his books, papers, and eventually items purloined from the hospital labs and supply closets. Even tending to John in the hospital hadn’t slowed him down.

John was afraid he’d try to move into his room with him so that he could continue to try to tend to him and work at the same time.

“You don’t have to feel guilty, you know,” John said, leaning on Sherlock as he continued to climb the stairs.

“I don’t,” Sherlock replied simply. “I simply regret not being able to warn you first.”

John smiled to himself. It was as close to admitting that he felt guilty that he could get from Sherlock.

Sherlock ignored the smile in favour of half-carrying John into the living room of their shared flat.

“I think the sofa should suffice for the afternoon, wouldn’t you say?” Sherlock said, a slight strain in his voice.

“Don’t feel like carrying me all the way upstairs?”

“Not really, no,” he replied, but John could hear the smile in his voice.

Sherlock helped him settle into the sofa, placing the Union Jack pillow under his knee and producing two more pillows from somewhere else to go under his head. He even managed to appear with a blanket to settle over him.

“I’ll make us some tea,” he announced, standing up.

“Sherlock, I’m fine,” John said quickly, trying to recall if his flatmate had ever made tea before.

“John, it’s boiling water. What could possibly go wrong?”

“What indeed,” John muttered to himself.

Sherlock reappeared a few minutes later, carrying a cup with him, which he promptly handed to John looking a bit pleased with himself.

John lifted it to his lips and was about to take a sip when he noticed, “Sherlock, you forgot the tea.”

Sherlock looked confused for a second then snatched the cup of hot water out of John’s hand.

“Right,” he called from the kitchen. “Just a moment.”

John smiled to himself again, afraid to chuckle since it would make his ribs ache.

Sherlock reappeared, this time bearing a rather fragrant cup of tea.

“Just tea?” John asked, not quite sure what Sherlock might have also put in it. The man was brilliant at most things, but every day tasks often eluded him.

Sherlock rolled his eyes in response and settled himself next to John on the couch, his hip pressing into John’s.

“Well, thanks,” John said, gesturing with the cup.

“You’re welcome,” Sherlock replied softly.

John looked at him carefully. “Sherlock, I’ll be fine,” he finally said, deciding it was reassurance that Sherlock was unconsciously seeking.

“I know, you are healing quite nicely.”

John smiled at him. “Thank you for the tea.”

Sherlock reached forward and John felt his fingers brush the side of his head before he reached behind him and adjusted the pillows.

“You’re welcome,” he said, letting his fingers rest against John’s neck.

Then, suddenly, he was up and moving off, leaving the couch in a swirl of movement.

“Sleep, John. Lestrade and, I dare say, all of London will need us before too long,” Sherlock announced as he stepped over to the table and settled himself down to another experiment.

John could’ve sworn he was going to kiss him just then.

  


_And The One Time..._

Sherlock heard the tell-tale cocking of the revolver just over his shoulder before feeling the barrel of the gun press into the back of his neck. John had heard it too and both of them slowly raised their hands, palms forward and fingers spread.

The barrel was warm from being tucked against the skin at the front of the trousers, no holster. It smelled sharply of gunpowder, recently fired meaning there were five or less bullets remaining. If it was carried in the trousers, it was unlikely it had been reloaded. Not a regular gun carrier then, nervous, less likely to shoot, but could be dangerous if startled. Slow movements then, Sherlock decided. Easily distracted by words, appeal to his emotion, Sherlock thought to himself.

He turned slowly and John followed, breathing increasing but eyes steady on Sherlock. Good, he thought to himself. Sherlock’s eyes were on the gun and he could see the slight quiver of it.

A young man held it, eyes wide, breathing hard, and pulse thudding in his neck. Nervous, but desperate to prove himself, Sherlock amended. He had the dirt of the streets on him, probably sleeps rough, but he was free of the bruises and scrapes the street will put on a man. Sleeps rough but has a home to return to, Sherlock concluded. His haircut was even and short, most likely a mother who gave him money and doted on him when he returned home and worried when he didn’t. He had bravado and inexperience, a highly dangerous combination, unpredictable and unstable.

Something crashed out on the street and Sherlock watched the youth holding the gun twitch, his finger tightening on the trigger.

“Killing us won’t help your street cred,” he said.

“What?” the youth demanded.

“Killing us won’t help you. We’re nobody, not in a gang, worthless in that regard. Now robbing us might help.”

“Shut up,” he responded shaking the gun at Sherlock and John. “Shut up, killing you is just what he wants.”

Sherlock cocked his head to the side, then smiled slowly.

“Ah, I see. Well, yes, I suppose that would change the balance of power.”

“Shut up!”

Sherlock could feel John tense behind him. Moriarty changed everything and it frustrated Sherlock to no end.

He looked harder at the youth. Pupils were dilated, drugs then, the shaking highly indicative of amphetamines. He was due for his next hit soon if his nervous movements were any sort of indication. His mind wouldn’t be on Sherlock on John, it would be on his next hit.

“Ah, I see,” Sherlock said, carefully. “Perhaps I could help make the decision to let us go a bit easier.”

The youth didn’t reply.

Sherlock inclined his head, “Jacket pocket, my left. I think you’ll find a little bag in there that may help with those tremors in your hand.”

The youth’s eyes narrowed.

Sherlock shrugged and rolled his eyes, allowing his posture to relax slightly. “Right, suit yourself. All the more for me later.”

“Sherlock...” he heard John say softly behind him.

“Shut up!” the youth yelled, and shifted the gun to John. Sherlock’s muscles tightened. He was crashing fast and as he did, he’d become more and more unstable. Sherlock could see the sweat begin to bead on the youth’s forehead and his tongue dart out to lick his lips. Repeatedly. It would be race between the youth’s trigger finger and the arrival of the police. Lestrade would never let him live this down.

Sherlock heard the cars pull up, but was sure the youth didn’t, since he hadn’t even twitched.

Then a door banged below them and it all unravelled. The youth jerked, firing the gun at John. His aim was off and he hit him in the chest. Sherlock dove forward, slamming into him with his full weight, letting his inertia carry him to the ground. The youth’s body absorbed the impact of the cement floor and his head slammed into the ground. Between his crashing system and the sudden physical trauma he lost consciousness immediately. Sherlock was on his feet and turning towards John.

He heard an awful sucking sound. Chest wound, lungs, a lot of blood, arterial damage highly likely. Sherlock fell to his knees beside John and ripped open his coat. His entire left side was soaked in blood.

Not good, thought Sherlock. “Up here!” he yelled as loud as he could and he pressed his hands into the wound.

“Shit,” he muttered as the blood welled up between his fingers.

John gasped for breath. It sounded wet. He went still.

Sherlock jerked his scarf from around his neck and held it to the wound pressing down with his knee to free his hands. The position was awkward.

He placed his hands into John’s chest and compressed once, twice, three times. Then, reaching for his face he pinched John’s nose and tipped his chin up and pressed his lips to John’s, blowing in. They were warm. He breathed into John again as he heard the pounding of feet just outside the door.

It opened, but Sherlock didn’t spare them a glance. John was his sole focus.

He compressed John's chest again, feeling the blood warm against his knee as Sherlock forced it out with his chest compressions. His lips pressed into John’s again.

The kiss of life, he thought to himself as the paramedics pulled him off John.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to tlynnfic for the beta and encouragement and for not rolling her eyes too much when I mentioned I was working on this. Thank you to memories_child for the Brit!pick and beta. I'll try to remember that pants =/= pants.


End file.
